Streaming Home servers
Such applications transmit content to the home network or to a different place entirely through the Internet. They function as the professional services of streaming, but in the home. Take a previously downloaded file and send it to the point where it demands. This allows for interesting applications such as allocating a computer just to access the network and P2P programs and transmit the content to another device, either a multimedia hard drive connected to a TV or stereo.
On trips, are useful for accessing content stored on the hard disk, provided they have connections and the source computer remains on and connected to the Internet.
With these applications, the computer plays media in the living room television without the need to lay cables
The transmission speed over a local network is much faster than regular Internet connections. Wired, will reach up to 100 megabits per second most common type of connection, Ethernet, or 1,000 megabits per second Gigabit Ethernet, the latest technological improvement. For the wifi, the most common specification, 802.11g, reaches up to 54 megabits per second, while the recently introduced 802.11n allows a theoretical maximum flow reached 600 megabits per second. These figures represent a smooth transmission of any audiovisual content.
If necessary, often, these programs make or compress output format to one with lower rate of bits per second. This option is when the connection is wireless and does not receive the signal strength, either by distance or by the walls that impede them.
Subsonic is a development that works as a home server streaming and promoted from the field of free software. It focuses on audio output (although it works with television stations that broadcast via the Internet) and can send to multiple devices simultaneously compressed formats like MP3, AAC, WMA or Ogg Vorbis and others. Operated through a Web page that loads into the browser and used to dive in the songs that the user file on the hard drive. It installs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In addition, provides for issuance to any mobile device capable of reading the Java language. Also be controlled from a PDA or cellular terminal.
It integrates with Last.fm, the popular service to discover new songs and artists from other users with similar tastes, and read biographies of bands and musicians from sites like All Music or Wikipedia. The connection between the devices can be encrypted and also possible to set speed limits in both sending and different privileges for each user.
Orb transmits video, music, pictures and television signal, if you have the right tuner card, or webcam. This last option opens the door for video surveillance applications. It is operated through a web site page of Orb, so you have to register with username and password.
This enables access from any computer, from the last generation consoles or from mobile phones. To promote compatible, convert file formats on the fly from one device to another, and adapts to the characteristics of each. For the small screens of mobile, sends video with a lower resolution, which guarantees the stability of the transmission. Similarly SpiffCast work, Jinzora or Ampache.
Server Squeezebox from Logitech is an application dedicated to audio. While designed to provide service to wireless devices of this brand, its code is free and suitable for any computer via a media player. Import automatically import playlists from iTunes, you can add Internet radio stations and supports most common audio formats on the Web Another great alternative, free and scheduled on free software, for the VLC media player, Although it is a more complicated for the average user, with a less intuitive handling.
The Media Center, another option
The program "Media Center" are designed to handle all types of audiovisual content and photographs within a computer, but also say sending them to other computers and devices. Microsoft has designed a software called XP Media Center, a special edition of this long-lived operating system. In Vista, is within the operating system. With these programs can stream content to other compatible devices with the protocol Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
Media Portal, Media Center popular among open source alternatives to Windows, it integrates a streaming server to enjoy the content on other devices. On Linux, MythTV has the same function and it is interesting because it transcends LinuxMCE audiovisual content for controlling home automation applications in the home such as lights, climate and security systems. It is based on Kubuntu, the version of Ubuntu that uses KDE as a graphical environment.